June 2008

Chihuly Campaign Has Attendance On The Rise

The Chihuly campaign switched into high gear this month with street banners popping up across the city, ads appearing in publications of all types, and be-decked cables cars rumbling around town. The end result? We’re delighted to report droves of visitors flocked to see what truly is the cutting edge of glass!

During its opening week, a stunning 32,000 people were wowed by Dale Chihuly’s fantastic creations. That’s almost as many people as attended the museum’s reopening in 2005, and marks a milestone for stand alone attendance numbers.

This blockbuster show, combined with a truly integrated marketing campaign, added to a fabulous location for art lovers, should be the recipe for a successful summer for our favorite museum. We’ll keep you posted on how the campaign plays out.

Astia Gives Entrepreneurs A Boost. Iron Gives Astia A Boost.

Astia Venture Conferences Promo from Iron Creative on Vimeo.

As a resource for fast-growing, women-led enterprises, Astia has built a network of advisors and VC’s like no other. And while their offering is truly exceptional, they were having trouble articulating it in a hip, cool way that matched their organization’s culture. So with the “It Conference” (their annual showcase) around the corner, they established a partnership with Iron. The goal? Tighten the core Astia message and build a sub-brand around the conference. Oh, and do it in two weeks.

Luckily, we don’t believe in spending months and months toiling over a strategic positioning. Why? Because Iron is an agency run by Creative Directors. We’ve spent our lives winning awards for successfully framing offerings in terms that connect and grab peoples’ imagination. So as we dig into a company’s inner workings, we recognize the building blocks for that process at a speed no left-brained type can.

Suffice to say, ten days later, Astia had a slick new identity for the conference, along with the language they’d need to more effectively sell the conference (and Astia as a whole) to their myriad targets.

  • Breaking News: check out the it conference viral email

Iron Launches New Financial Services Brand Identity

This month we’re launching an exciting addition to our financial services portfolio with a new identity system for private equity firm Paine & Partners, comprising a new logo and full business system. In the coming weeks we’ll be rolling out a new web site (currently in Beta), company brochure and a range of support materials.

The ‘addition’ symbol in the logo alludes to the company’s position which we determined during an extensive strategic process carried out earlier this year. Essentially, Paine & Partners’ unique approach allows the firm to identify opportunities other firms do not or cannot see. And it is this hidden component that is artfully reflected in the logo, while the ‘addition’ symbol alludes to added value.

Does Award-Winning Work Matter? Yes and No.

In Bruce Mau’s “Incomplete Manifesto for Growth” the Canadian design legend plainly states “Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.” And for a long time we felt the same way. After all, our clients are more focused on real world results. Does the work sell more products, drive more traffic, build greater brand recognition? These are the metrics by which we are really judged – not the number of gleaming gongs displayed in our office.

This may sound like a sour grapes condemnation by folks who’ve been edged out in scores of creative competitions. But that’s just not the case. We’ve won dozens of creative awards in our past lives. Take this Lombardi Sports spot for example – written and produced by Iron CD John Walsh, back when he was freelancing for Hub Strategy.

It won the whole ball of wax in the National Admark awards – and while it was certainly good for Lombardi’s business, helping to establish them as THE Bay Area sports retailer, that would have been the case whether or not it had been entered in the Addy’s. That said, when talking about awards, it’s important to distinguish what kinds of awards you’re talking about. In our opinion, creative awards like the Addy’s are nice, but mean little. On the other hand, American Marketing Association awards (alright, we just won one) mean a lot – because they are judged based on results.

So we’re not saying we shouldn’t be ego-maniacal award-mongers. We should just make sure the awards we’re winning are the right awards.

Springboard Forward: Video Portfolio

The samples below represent a fairly wide range of styles, demonstrating Iron’s adaptable aesthetic. We believe we will be able to leverage that adaptability, along with our strong understanding of the Springboard Forward brand, to deliver a product that appeals to the target, as well as all internal stakeholders.

Checkpoint / The Wall:
This piece features a bold, unconventional look and feel, intended to invigorate attendees at Checkpoint’s annual meeting.

Capital Volkswagen / White World
Here we developed a friendly but minimalist world, where the message and the product would stand out, unfettered.

Astia / it Conference
This was a viral piece, that needed to surprise and entertain people, while branding Astia’s conference as an unconventional new experience.

Lombardi Sports / Miles Per Hour
This spot needed to maintain consistency with the overall Lombardi campaign – based primarily on irreverence.

Purcell Murray / Pro Range & Showroom
These two spots made the most of a shoe string budget, carrying the brand Iron had developed for Purcell Murray, into a Cable TV environment.

Clothing Broker / Security
This spot evolved very naturally out of the Clothing Broker brand promise: “We save wherever we can, so you save big on designer fashions.

Purcell Murray / Gaggenau Steam Oven
Here, the client requested a very conservative, conventional aesthetic.

The Hidden Costs of Working For Free

From the well-known, such as the Legion of Honor, to the up and coming, such as Astia, about a third of our clients are nonprofit organizations. And that means we have tried a wide variety of fee structures to fit a wide variety of budgets. At the core of our strategy lies a discounted agency rate, which reflects our ongoing desire to do good work for good causes.

Still, we’re occasionally asked to do pro bono work. While the prospect of helping a good cause is often compelling, experience has taught us that doing free work can often end up costing the client in ways they might not have imagined. In fact we just started working with a new organization who were so frustrated with the lack of attention and shifting timelines they were getting from their pro bono resource, they were happy to find funding to get the job done right and on time. Without a little “skin in the game” clients can also become complacent about the true value of the services they are receiving and ultimately the true value of their brand.

If you are considering trying to get some design work for free, simply ask yourself if you can afford to have your work bumped when a paying client comes along. Long lead times can mitigate the risk, but investing in your brand might be a better long term bet.

The Agency Discount Myth

In the good old days, newspapers, radio stations, TV networks, etc. offered advertising agencies a 15% discount. Because the agencies were able to pool their clients’ budgets, the media outlet’s cost of acquisition was greatly reduced and a volume discount was in order. In turn, the agencies were able to plan the buy, negotiate the buy, reconcile the buy, etc. without impacting the client’s bottom line cost.

These days, in many cases, the media outlets offer everyone the “agency discount.” But in reality, they’ve eliminated the discount, and anyone who is willing to spend hours and hours negotiating will get the best rate. The so-called discount is just a fiction offered to close a sale. So is the existence of an agency discount the “myth” to which my title refers? Nope. In fact, the myth is that the agency discount was ever of much value in the first place. Think about it: in the old days, people got the same rate from an agency as they would get for themselves. So why did they bother? The answer is: they wanted an expert’s advice and an expert’s results-driven process.

Of course, that used to be free and now you have to pay for it. Or do you? Consider this: when we began buying the media for our biggest client we increased their print circulation by 15%, while decreasing their cost per point by 10%. Plus, we doubled the number of paid publications in their mix (dramatically increasing the effectiveness of their placements) and found so many holes in a $600k cable contract that they realized they had to reallocate those funds. When we looked at the value of their new buy, we’d earned our 15% commission more than three times over.

Long story short, we encourage folks to focus a lot less on the agency discount and a lot more on true agency value – because 15% is just the tip of the iceberg if your agency knows their stuff.